


Once Upon a Time in the Were

by starhawk2005



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Chance Meetings, F/M, Het, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-03
Packaged: 2017-11-11 08:34:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starhawk2005/pseuds/starhawk2005
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John gets hurt – taking on four werewolves at once? Bad idea – and needs some help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Time in the Were

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: If there’s an Adopt-A-Winchester program, I get dibs on John.  
> Author Notes: This was for dodger_winslow, who requested I write a smut!fic where John’s gotten hurt and then needs some assistance to save the day. With a little Western flair. Not being a fan of Westerns, I’m not sure I met that end of the goal, but I can say with perfect certainty that there IS Hurt!John, and there IS smut, so two out of three ain’t bad. ;)

He’s stumbling through trees in the darkness. He’s exhausted, spent. There’s deep bites and claw marks on his legs, his arms. A good one across his chest, too. Sticky blood drying down the side of his face and neck. Wrenched muscles. And just general overall exhaustion.

John Winchester hadn’t just waded in completely blind, of course. He’d known the werewolves were here. That had been his whole reason for coming to this godforsaken spot. He just hadn’t discovered until it was too late how _many_ of them had been in the pack. Two, or even three? No problem. But four had proved more than even a veteran hunter like himself could take. He’d managed to kill all but one, but he’d taken a lot of damage in the process.

He thinks he hears running water, and he stops to listen. Yes, there it is. He limps in the direction of the sound, finally reaching a stream about two paces wide. It’s not optimal, but it’ll do. He splashes into it, even walking through it for a little while, perpendicular to the shore. Weres’ sense of smell isn’t as good as vampires’, thank God, and he hopes this little maneuver of his will throw the fourth one off. If it does, it’ll be worth the fact that his pants now feel like leaden weights, dragging him down. Not to mention cold as ice.

He needs to buy himself some time. If he can just find some kind of shelter, maybe he can rest, gather his strength. Get back after the thing and finish the hunt.

Blood drips sluggishly into his eye as he surges on, and he wipes it away, reflecting for the hundredth time in the last hour that he’s damned lucky that most werewolf lore – just like all that twice-damned Hollywood vampire bullshit – is _crap_. No, you don’t have to worry about were bites transforming you. It’s more like HIV – or vampirey, for that matter – you have to ingest the blood. So he supposes it’s true – God does protect _fools_ and little children. He’s cut up and bleeding something fierce, but he’d managed not to get any of their blood in his wounds. Score one for Corporal John Winchester.

Which, all things considered, is a minor miracle in itself. Because something else the common were lore has wrong – silver bullets won’t kill a werewolf. You need silver, all right, but you need it in the form of a blade. So you can behead the furry bastards. He wonders, and not for the first time, if perhaps vampires and weres have more in common than hunter lore suggests.

John continues to stumble forward, trying to move quietly. Trying to stay on his feet, get as far away as possible. Trying not to lose consciousness and just fall flat on his face in the dirt and leaves, easy prey for the last pack-member.

He thinks he sees something through the trees, all of a sudden. He moves towards it, as quietly as he can manage in his current state, pausing at the edge of a clearing. There’s a cabin in the middle, and a dirt road leading out. He pauses, leaning against a tree-trunk, thinking. There’s a dim porch-light gleaming above the cabin door, but no other lights on that he can see, and he wonders if he should risk knocking. Assuming there’s anyone in residence.

But then he thinks better of it. One look at him, and any sane person would grab the nearest shotgun, hold it on him, and call the authorities. John’s just too tired to deal with the long arm of the law right now.

He circles the perimeter of the clearing, checking out the lay of the land. There. There’s a shed behind the cabin. Rough-hewn and not terribly large. But it’s _some_ kind of shelter. Maybe he can get a little sleep, and then get back on the hunt tomorrow.

There’s no way he’s leaving even one of them alive to rebuild the pack.

Mind made up, he sticks to the shadows as much as possible, creeping up to the shed. All other lights are still off in the cabin, but he’s not going to take any chances.

There’s no lock on the shed door, so he staggers inside without incident. He’s already nearly unconscious with exhaustion when he slides down the opposite wall, barely noticing all the items he’s knocking loose with a clatter. His body has finally given up the battle for tonight.

 

*~*~*

Sudden light in glaring into his eyes, and he tries to wave it off, muttering. Then he remembers where he is and what he’s doing. Oh, crap.

He opens his eyes, wincing. A woman is standing in the shed doorway, holding a flashlight. It’s hard to make out details with the flashlight burning into his retinas, but he sees a few details. Brunette, petite…and afraid.

“Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want?” she asks, voice shaky. Her eyes run down his body, her gaze flicking from injury to injury. John knows this must look really bad. A strange man, covered in blood, and he’s hiding out in your shed? He’d be scared, too.

He figures she must be alone, too. If there was a husband or a boyfriend, they’d be here right now, dragging his sorry ass the Hell out of the shed. Defending their woman. But she continues to stand there, not calling for help, and John can feel in his bones that it’s just the two of them.

He aches, he _hurts_ , but not badly enough to stay and cause that kind of fear. He’s seen that fear on a woman’s face before. It’s etched into his brain in fire, until the day he passes. _Mary._ No, he’d rather spend the night in the cold, wet forest than see that look on another woman’s face. Especially if he’s the cause.

“It’s OK,” he says, struggling to get to his feet. Hands out, to show that he’s unarmed. “I was just resting. I didn’t come here to hurt anyone. I’ll leave now.”

She backs out into the yard, giving him a wide berth. He manages to make it to the shed doorway, but then he staggers, gripping the edge of the doorframe with bloodied hands. Christ, he’s in trouble. He can barely move.

Still, he tries. He takes a step out, into the yard. Or starts to, anyways.

It’s the thought that counts, right?

The world greys out for a moment, and next thing he knows, he’s on his hands and knees in the dirt, the woman kneeling next to him. She’s holding his arm, apprehension and compassion at war in her face. “No, come inside. You need help. Were you….in an accident?”

You could call it that, John supposes.

 

*~*~*

Her name’s Clare, and she’s a novelist. Detective novels. She comes out here to the middle of nowhere to write, she tells him. It’s serene, no distractions.

Except for bloody men randomly turning up in her back shed, that is. John has to grin a little through the pain, at the irony of it.

He’s not sure what to tell her – he’s too tired and hurt to fabricate much of a tale – so he just tells her he was hiking in the woods one moment, and the next thing he remembers, he’s on the forest floor, bleeding. Let her fill in the blanks as she wants to – grizzly, coyote, wolf, whatever – and if she notices the machete with the bright silvery (but bloodied) blade in the sheath on his belt, he hopes she assumes he was using it to hack branches in the woods. Not to behead werewolves.

Or to slice and dice women alone in cabins in the middle of the woods, for that matter.

Clare produces a first-aid kit from a closet somewhere, and John lowers himself into a kitchen chair, wincing as she presses a pad soaked with iodine against the deep gash over his left eye. He winces, cursing under his breath. “Sorry,” she says. She swallows convulsively, and he notices she looks a bit pale and faint, herself.

“Are _you_ OK?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she laughs a bit. “I just always feel a little faint at the sight of blood. Go figure. I can write the goriest murder scenes in my books, but show me some actual blood?” she snorts, applying the pad again, and John winces again. “I can’t even watch ER, how silly is that?”

John’s never seen the show – not much time to watch TV when you’ve got appointments to keep with evil beings across fifty states – but he gets the idea. “Got some whiskey? Might help both of us.” Relax her a bit, and take the edge off the pain for him.

She brings them a bottle of JD and two glasses, and John pours himself a stiff shot. Better.

Clare’s busy working on one of the deep cuts – teeth or claws, he can’t remember - along his forearm when he first notices it. The fact she’s _watching_ him. Every time he glances at her face, her eyes flick away from his.

But it’s not because she’s afraid of him. Her body posture’s not tense enough, and she’s standing too close. If she was afraid, she wouldn’t be invading his personal space like this, leaning so closely over him, not even to help with his wounds. It’s something else, his instincts tell him.

Which is part of the problem. She’s _close_. He can smell the scent of her – clothes and hair and skin – and it’s been too long since he’s had a woman. Not to mention what she’s wearing. Or rather, _not_ wearing. Only a tank-top and sweatpants. No bra, and he can clearly see her nipples pressing against the fabric. It doesn’t help him to cool down, at all.

Not to mention that battle always seems to have that kind of effect on him. Something about having a close brush with death. It makes you want to re-affirm that you’re alive, and to do that through the act of sex.

So he’s not surprised that he’s erect. That he _wants_ her.

He’s had the occasional woman from time-to-time on the road. When his need for affection – or a reasonable facsimile thereof – has become too great. But it’s always been after the successful completion of a job. And this job ain’t done yet, so rewarding himself ought to come (no pun intended) later.

Or so he tells himself. But it’s hard – again, no pun intended – because she’s close and warm, and her hands are cool and gentle. He’s hungry for comfort. From the looks she keeps trying not to get caught giving him, her eyes lingering over his face, his eyes, his mouth, he thinks she is, too. From the messages her body is sending him, those nipples still _inviting_ him from beneath too-thin material.

He’s got to stop this. This isn’t the time and place, and he’s in no shape to make any decent job of this in any case. Above all, he doesn’t want to scare Clare again. For all he knows, he could be misreading her signals.

He puts a gentle hand over hers. “I’ll get the rest,” he says. “Thanks.” Getting her hands off him, getting her further away, is a good start. And no more damned whiskey, either. He gives the glass a nudge away from him, to underscore his resolve.

He finishes treating the bite-mark on his left calf, and the shallow but messy claw-scrape across his right thigh, both times just tearing the rips in his jeans wider, instead of taking his pants off. The last thing he needs to do is show Clare just how aroused he still is. Because she’s still in the room, trying to watch-without-watching-him across the table. Her fingernails tapping on the wood, but he’s still not at all sure that this is nervousness about having a strange man in her sanctuary.

“My bed’s in the other room,” she offers when he’s done, and he tries not to notice the way her cheeks flush. “Why don’t you lie down for a bit, John? You need sleep.”

He wants to, yes. But is she going to call the authorities on him while he’s out? It’s not an attractive possibility. He wracks his brain, trying to think of a decent reason to stall her from doing so. He doesn’t need park rangers coming in here and grilling him about the attack, when he’d much rather get back out there and hunt down that fourth were.

But his tired mind can’t come up with anything. You’d think he’d get better at lying after so many years of it, but it seems he just never managed to develop the knack for it. Even with so much practice. Damn it to Hell. Finally, he decides to just lie down and take his chances.

She doesn’t bring up the possibility of calling in outside help either, though, and he breathes an inner sigh of relief as she leads him into the other room. He settles himself on the edge of the bed and thanks her quietly, and waits until she leaves to strip off his blood-stained shirt and t-shirt. He removes his belt, the sheath of the machete still attached to it, and shoves both of them far under the bed. John curses silently at the loss of his backpack and all his additional weaponry and survival supplies. Damned werewolves. His boots come off after a brief struggle, and he’s finally able to lie back, pulling the sheet over him.

He’s sinking fast into blackness, exhaustion pulling him down, drowning him. His last coherent thought is that the bed smells like her.

 

*~*~*

John’s being chased. Over sharp rocks and gravel, hunted like a rabbit. The hunter becoming the hunted. He stumbles, gasping for air, not knowing what’s behind him, and not _wanting_ to know.

Then, just like that, something has him. It’s got him by the shoulder, and he calls out hoarsely and grabs back, rolling over and trapping his captor beneath him.

It’s all wrong, though. The body pinned beneath him is too small, too soft. A woman’s. And his body responds almost automatically, his hips shoving forward into hers and his mouth crushing down. His tongue pressing in, tasting her. God, he’s missed that mouth.

“Mary,” he says, whispering it against her lips. Running his hand down her shoulder, across her breast, circling a hardening nipple under a whisper-thin barrier of fabric.

“No, John,” says a voice, and that’s when he wakes up all the way, shakes off the last grip of the nightmare. Clare. Clare, not Mary. Oh crap.

He lets her go, sits back on the bed. “I’m- sorry,” he says, embarrassed at his lack of control. At how quickly the blood is still rushing down below his belt. If he was still wearing one. “I thought you were someone else-“

“I know,” she says, sitting up herself. High colour in her cheeks, even in the dimness. Christ, if she didn’t think he was dangerous before-

But no, she’s not bolting out of the room. Instead, she’s looking at the wedding ring on his hand. “Wife?”

“Yes,” he says, looking down at it, himself. “But she’s dead. Been gone for a little over twenty years.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. She puts her hand on his chest. His _bare_ chest. Skin on skin, and his blood pressure spikes up another notch. His hands twitch, and he has to clutch the bedsheets to keep from touching her. She’s just trying to reassure him, comfort him, he tells himself. He is not going to disgrace himself by misinterpreting this.

But then she leans in close, and he only has just enough time to shut his eyes before she kisses him. Tongues tangle together, and he risks putting a hand to her hair, looping strands through his fingers. He can’t believe this is really happening.

She pulls back, looking him straight in the eyes. “I know we’re strangers to each other. But…I haven’t been with anyone for awhile. A _long_ while. And I’m thinking you haven’t been, either.” He doesn’t miss the way her eyes drop to his crotch, where his erection is clearly outlined under faded denim. She kisses him again, but more hesitantly this time. “We’re both adults, right? It’s not wrong if-“

No, it’s not. John pulls her in for another kiss, cutting off her words, tasting her mouth again. He still hurts, but he doesn’t care. He wants this, and he’s not going to pass on the opportunity. The job can wait.

Besides, if she’s here and he’s distracting her, she’s not in the next room calling in emergency personnel and park rangers, who’ll ask annoying questions and slow down the progress of his hunt. Yeah, that sounds good.

Her hands are exploring him, sliding through his chest hair, running along the strong muscles of his arms. He has to resist the animal urge to just rip the flimsy tank top right off her. Slow, he reminds himself. He’s an unknown quantity, and she’s taking a risk. He kisses her lips, then pulls her even closer and moves his mouth to the hollow of her throat, pressing wet, open-mouthed kisses along the smooth skin.

Her top comes off at some point, and her skin is dry and soft under his roughened hands. His fingertips slide down her breast, exploring the same nipple he’d made that confused grab for before, and she makes a soft noise that makes him even harder, if that’s possible. She’s grinding against him, and he can barely remember why he stopped himself from doing this earlier.

He lies back on the bed again, pulling her down on top of him, then guides that nipple to his mouth. Salt and sweetness, and he suckles harder, drawing on her. He looks up, to see dark strands of hair falling over her face, hiding her expression. He moves his mouth to her other nipple, his stubble teasing across it, and slides his hands down her spine. Muscles dance under his palms, and she moans, and he smiles smugly against her skin. Nice to know he doesn’t get _too_ rusty during the long dry spells in between bedroom ‘performances'.

She moves back and gets off of him suddenly, his mouth disengaging from her nipple with a muted pop that makes them both smile, and then she’s pulling his jeans off of him. Boy, is he glad he put on clean briefs this morning.

She’s kneeling over his legs now, her hair falling around her face and brushing over his thighs and cock in a sensuous tease, and he groans. Her mouth engulfs him, ardent and wet, and he has to fist his hands in the bedsheets again. He needs a distraction, fast, or he’s going to _come_ , fast.

He sits up just enough to reach her thigh, hooking his hand around and tugging at it until she gets the idea. She’s soon straddling his face, her hands and mouth still occupied with his aching hard-on. But that’s fine by him, he has his distraction now. Dark, fragrant curls tickle against his nose, and he parts the delicate folds of skin so he can really get down to business.

Small hands wrap around his balls, stroking him, and he grunts. He tilts his head back, dragging the rough burr of his chin across her clit, and she shudders and moans, her hands stilling on his flesh for a moment. The women he’s been with so far always seem to enjoy that maneuver. And he knows a thing or two about _maneuvers_ , ex-Marine that he is. He grins to himself, and cools any residual burn from that rough caress with gentle laps of his tongue.

It goes on for a long, luxurious while. There’s her mouth, first taking him deep inside, and then she’s pulling out and back so her tongue can sweep wetly up and down. There’s the feel and taste of her, her thighs shivering around him when he hits a spot _just_ right. He can almost feel the little bud swelling under the gentle glides of his tongue. His lips grow more and more moist with her juices, her salt coating the inside of his mouth, and finally he knows if he doesn’t stop now, he’s going to lose it.

“Protection?” he rasps, stopping his ministrations and easing her back off of him. He damns the loss of his backpack once again.

“I think there’s some in the dresser…” she gets up shakily and crosses the room, her naked backside gleaming palely, and John takes the opportunity to admire the show.

She comes back shortly with a little foil packet, and he offers a silent prayer of thanks to whatever god might happen to be listening.

Clare pauses, looking a little concerned. “How did you want to-? I mean, with your injuries-“

“If you don’t mind doing the bulk of the work, I think I can manage it,” he says dryly, taking the packet from her and getting himself ready.

She climbs on top of him, easing him slowly inside of her, and it’s perfect. Yeah, his wounds are still protesting and he’s got that burn in his balls that comes from months of not allowing himself much in the way of release, but it’s still perfect. Her head is down, hair obscuring her face again, her hands resting on his chest, and her breasts bouncing fetchingly every time she slides down on him. Her hot sheath clutches at him, muscles rippling and flexing, and he grasps her hips, steadying her, holding her to the pace he wants to set.

Christ, he’s not going to last long at all. John drops a hand down to where their bodies are coming together, rubbing a firm thumb around the throbbing little node, and she soon gives a choked sound and rides him through a few more rough paces, before her muscles give out and she collapses across him, shuddering.

He’s almost there, himself. So very close. It starts like a wave of blinding white light, but somehow in his groin instead of his head, and then it races outward to fill every part of him, as he spends a few more moments stroking hard and upwards into her slick warmth. Finally, he’s there, losing everything as he climaxes.

 

*~*~*

They’re lying together, still wrapped around each other, when he hears the howl. And it’s nearby. God, _no._

“Clare,” he says, low and urgent. “Get up. _Now_.”

“What?” She’s sleepy, slow. Confused. He doesn’t have time for this. _Both_ their lives are at stake. He rolls her off of him, then hauls himself to the edge of the bed, ignoring the screaming protest of his limbs, digging under the bed for the machete with one hand and snagging his jeans from the floor with the other.

A horrific crash comes from the general direction of the porch, just as he manages to zip his fly back up. “John?” Clare asks behind him. She’s afraid again, this time with real cause. John curses himself as he rushes into the kitchen area. This is why it’s a bad idea to have fun before the job is done. Because the job, the _evil_ , might come seeking you. Might just kill the person you had fun with, just for kicks. Evil’s like that.

It’s on him in a flash of fur and sinew, knocking him to the floor. Bloody, fire-hot breath scorches across his throat as teeth snap, narrowly missing his flesh. He tries to shove the thing away, so he can swing the machete and take the damned thing’s head off without getting himself a mouthful of contaminated blood in the process, but his arms feel leaden. Adrenalin’s pumping, but there isn’t enough left in his gas-tank to do anything more than try to keep those teeth from his throat, those claws from disemboweling him.

He’s going to die here, half-naked on his back on the splintery wood of the cabin floor. Then Clare-

 _Fuck_ that, he coaches himself. Get a grip, old man-

That’s when the were is knocked off of him with a resounding clang. John looks up, shocked, and there’s Clare. Standing over him, wrapped in a bedsheet. The heavy cast-iron pan she used to clock the werewolf still clutched tightly in both hands.

It’s lying against the far wall, dazed, but John knows even beating the thing repeatedly in the head with the pan won’t do it.

It’s up to him.

“What _is_ it?” Clare asks, voice shaking, struggling to help him as he tries to get to his feet.

“Something dangerous,” John replies curtly. “Something that’s going to recover soon, too, unless I cut its fucking head off.” He staggers over to the thing, gripping the machete in blood-slicked fingers. It raises its head, dazedly snarling its defiance, and John brings his arm up, then slashing it down as hard and fast as tired muscle will let him.

It doesn’t work. The thing’s head is only half severed, and John’s strength is suddenly just _gone_.

It’s not willing to give up yet, either. It sweeps his legs out from under him with a swipe of razored claws, and then jumps clumsily onto him, starting to claw its way back up his body. He makes a desperate grab for the handle of the machete, but his fingers slip off, and then the were has his forearm in its teeth, grinding.

He yells, trying to yank his arm out of the thing’s fangs. He can’t give up now. Clare won’t be able to outrun this thing, even badly wounded as it is. It has to die. He _has_ to finish the job.

It shrieks suddenly, releasing his arm, and John knows that cry. He’s heard it three times already in the last twenty-four hours. There’s a sound, metal grating loudly against bone, and then the thing’s head thumps onto John’s bare chest, soaking him in blood. A dead weight. Literally. Clare’s standing over him again, his machete in her hand, bloodied to the elbows. She finished the job for him. Despite the fact she’s looking a little woozy again. Right, he remembers. Can’t even watch ER.

He’s so spent it almost hurts to just _smile_ at her, but he manages it somehow. “Now, that’s _my_ kind of woman,” he comments.

 

*~*~*

He explains things to her as best he can, while checking to make sure that none of the werewolf blood has gotten into his wounds. Once again, he’s gotten lucky.

Clare’s having some issues processing the whole thing – no surprise there – but she saw the werewolf with her own eyes. Watched the thing slowly change back into human form, that of a young woman, over the hour that they left it lying in the kitchen while Clare tried to patch up his wounds, both old and new. So she’s not about to think he’s crazy. Or any crazier than she must feel at the moment.

They bundle it up in a tarp, and John backtracks until he finds his truck. He’ll take the body back to the clearing where its companions fell, and then he’ll cremate the lot of them. Just to be safe.

He won’t let Clare come with him, though. He lets her help load the corpse onto the truck-bed, but that’s it. She’s done enough. Gave him shelter, saved his life. And more. The rest of the mechanics of the hunt have to fall on him.

“Maybe I should break into horror novels,” she jokes, when the dirty task is done and they’re both standing there, staring down at the leaf-strewn soil between them, because it’s that awkward moment when he’s about to ride – drive, rather - off into the sunset and neither of them knows how to say goodbye.

He finally settles for hugging her and pressing a kiss to her temple. “Thanks for…everything. But mostly for saving my life.”

She smiles, but it’s sad. He’s not likely to see her again, they both know it. “My pleasure.” She pauses, then adds with a little smirk: “In more ways than one.”

He grins and turns, climbing into the cab of the truck before he can change his mind. He starts the engine with a roar, then slowly pulls away, back onto the barely-there dirt road that leads out.

He risks a glance back in the mirror, and raises his hand out the window to her. A strong woman, someone he could very easily have fallen in love with.

But the job’s the job, and while he’s ‘on-duty’, there’s just some things that have to go on the back-burner. At least for now.


End file.
